2.6GHz ultra-wide voltage range energy efficient dual A9 in 28nm UTBB FD-SOI

Abstract

This paper presents the implementation details and silicon results of a 2.6GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A9 manufactured in a 28nm Ultra-Thin Body and BOX FD-SOI technology. The implementation is based on a fully synthesizable standard design flow, and the design exploits the great flexibility provided by FD-SOI technology, notably a wide Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) range, from 0.6V to 1.2V, and forward body bias (FBB) techniques up to 1.3V bias voltage, thus enabling an extremely energy efficient implementation.